Tele-miscommunications
by JigokuAi
Summary: Talking through a phone can only convey so much...


**Song Inspiration: Telemiscommunications - DEADMAU5 ft. Imogen Heap**  
**Lyricist: Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap**  
**Copyright: Megaphonic Limited**

She glanced at her phone, again, and sighed in agitation. Her husband was flying home today, at least... he was supposed to be flying back to her today. _Why hasn't he called?_ This marked his fourth trip outside of Japan and while he'd told her, honestly, it was for work she knew there was more to it. The long-haired girl could accept once or twice as being pure chance and coincidence but four incidental meetings this year in three different countries caught her worry. It was only March! She started to feel as helpless as she had when he'd disappeared all those years ago...

_Riiing._

She answered before her mind could decide what emotions were running through her head. "Hello?"

"**Hey babe, how's your day been**," he started.

She sighed in relief. _His flight must have just gotten in. He's coming home and then we can talk and I'll ask him to not take anymore international cases and we'll get better. Right? I just have to ask... he's so dense he probably doesn't even know. He'll agree and we can be happy again._ "**No, you first**! I haven't heart anything from you in ages, mister!" The girl laughed to reinforce her determination for their imminent happiness.

A few awkward moments of silence passed before he finally spluttered out an embarrassed, **"Uh.. what? The delay's quite bad."** She wondered where his head was. Delay or none, he'd usually be able to decipher her meaning and reply back anyway. She didn't care. He had _called_ and they were going to fix their relationship, starting today.

"**Yeah? Sorry...**" she excused him, anxious to get his flight details. She grabbed her keys and headed out to the car which had been parked in reverse, a product of her husband's ever worsening paranoia. The young woman thought back to her then-new husband's inane reasoning '_what if someone planted a bomb in the house and we had to get out quickly?_' while she asked him which airport he was at. She pulled out and went east; he was probably going to land at Haneda.

"**Where are you, I can't really hear you...**" She pulled over in frustration, her hands fisting and clenching at the wheel and drive stick.

She snapped at him, "What airport are you at? You're coming home today, right? I'm picking you up."**A taxi distracted** her. It slammed into an ambulance that was speeding towards it. The taxi failed to yield and both vehicles spun out of control right in front of her. Distantly, she could hear his voice offering defensive half-hearted apologies. The space between his words housed subtle annoyance. She couldn't hear it; she was too busy wrestling down her own irritation. "Hold on, I can't hear you over the sirens. Some idiot just plowed into an ambulance." The angry girl started her car up again and sped past the accident. "**Anyway you.. You were saying?**"

"I can't go back to Japan today; I'm sorry. A case just came up. Someone just bombed the Japanese Embassy in France and they called me in. I'm catching a flight from England right now. The government is flying me in on a private jet. **Wait, uh.. Now they're waving me over.** Wait for me just a moment." Her heart sank. _He hasn't even returned and he's leaving again._ Distractedly, she wondered if that _other girl_ would be flown in for consultation too.

She heard a cough on the other end. He was speaking. She struggled to gather enough wits to listen, to understand. "**Can I call you back?** I really am sorry. I know I was only home for ten days before I left last time and I was supposed to be finished today... I feel terribly but you understand right? No one's gotten away with bombing France since 1891 and I certainly..."

The words that reached her ears were different. They bit more and stabbed at her ruthlessly._ Can I call you back? ... I was home for ten whole days last time. You must understand... The case is more important than Us._ She wanted to cry, whether in sadness or in anger, she knew not.

"Hey, are you okay? Can you hear me alright there?" He worried over her as she imagined him meeting up with _her_ at a fancy French restaurant, underneath the Eiffel Tower, inside a dark hotel room...

"**Yeah, everything's fine.**" Her flat voice raised his alarm. He asked why she sounded so dejected. _I love you. I miss you._ He begged her to understand and wondered aloud why she was acting so cold. She should be used to it. _Please don't be this way. Please don't make it so much harder for me._ His silent pleas went unnoticed. "**Why am I.. I don't know why. I probably just need sleep; It's been a busy week...**" It was her turn to make excuses. She turned around and drove past the ambulance-taxi tangle.

He miserably wondered what he could do to fix them, to make things better. But then the flight attendant flagged him down. The plane was leaving. Unwillingly, he gave one last apology before he hung up. "**Sorry, I've got to go.** Take care of yourself. Get some rest." He waited for her to say something, _anything_ but her visions were getting the best of her and she couldn't muster enough sanity to work her vocal cords. "**So... okay, bye...**" He vowed to check up on her the moment he landed. The handsome youth had a bad idea about all this. Until then, he returned to the newly updated list of suspects in his new case.

**This is just so unlike us**

The suspects came to life through the paper and surrounding him, greeted the detective with glares all around. Someone had made a bomb from... styrofoam? How does one get styrofoam to react vigorously enough to collapse the Japanese Embassy? He'd need _her_ help on this one too, it seemed. She wouldn't be happy, he mused; they'd barely parted six hours ago but he didn't possess her unrivaled master of chemistry and they had a bomber on the loose. This was familiar; this never got old. It wasn't easy but he'd always managed to find the root of the problem and lock it away, with a little help, of course. He knew what to do with kidnappers and poisoners and thieves and grifters. What was he to do with his unhappy wife?

**Cut back to horizontalisms**

Her husband didn't want her. She wasn't smart enough, couldn't help him with his cases. He was avoiding coming home in order to keep away from her. That he could spend time with _her_ was a bonus. _She'd_ graduated with a Ph.D in Chemistry from Oxford University. _She_ was probably just as well read as him. _She_ could probably debate anything from metaphysics to astrophysics with him. _She_ was better dressed. _She_ was better looking. _She_ was... The veins of jealousy formed into rivulets and dripped from her brain down and filled her entire being. Hatred spawned from every pore and pitch-black depression filled her home, suffocating her. The false words she'd heard on the phone earlier kept echoing on in her mind. Her love for him twisted and molded her into the embodiment of anger.

**If we could win just one small touch**

The phone the professor gave him vibrated. He opened it and his wife's smiling face greeted him. The sight depressed him; how could they go back to those care free times? He touched the photo's hair, idly wondering how long it had been since he last caressed her face. He'd kiss her fears away now if she were on the plane with him. The young man briefly wondered if he should order the plane to Japan and forego the case altogether. He pushed the dangerous thought away. _Hundreds of thousands more people could be hurt. I must find the bomber before he targets more public places._ He would finish this case and then he would return home.

**Contact versus tele-miscommunications**

The plane landed and he tried to call her but a French general came to escort him to the building's remains while debriefing him. He settled for a text instead: _I'll call you as soon as possible._ She barely glanced at it.

**~ DidItellyouIlovedyoutoday? ~**

He had every intention of calling her. The weary husband missed his lovely wife with every fibre of his being but when he easily closed the French Bomber case, the first one he informed was the woman he brought in for a consultation. She did, after all, hand him the most incriminating pieces of evidence against the suspect they now had behind bars awaiting trial. He hoped to get a short conversation with the woman he married in tonight but that **plan foiled**. This was the single highest profile case in the developed world and that the man could solve it so effortlessly skyrocketed his already impressive reputation.

**The sirens pass by** menacingly. He turned just in time to catch a glimpse of an ambulance racing its way towards the nearest hospital. It was a common enough scene to him these past few weeks. After the colossal success of his French case, governments all over the world swooped in and begged him to find their missing ambassadors or to spy on their non-allied country or to take down the mobs littering their otherwise 'pristine' streets. A little taxi caught his eye as it tried its best to keep up but it was quickly falling behind. For some reason, the scene reminded him of his wife. He wilted, suddenly. _I was supposed to call her._ Guilty at always putting the world's needs before hers, he dialed her number, the muscles in his fingers struggling to remember the order the digits went in.

There were **kids screaming** in the background as she answered so he missed the first few sweet words out from her lips. He asked after her and her reply scared him senseless.

"You finally remembered to call," she sobbed. "I'm glad I get to hear your voice for one last time." Her voice cracked on every syllable; she sounded so sickly.

"What? Love, what's wrong? What do you mean last time?" Husband panicked as he desperately tried to flag down a taxi to the nearest airport. He thought of the one chasing down the ambulance before focusing on his distressed wife.

"I can't do this anymore. I haven't seen you in months. I can't live like this."

"Please, don't do anything rash. I'm catching the next flight out to Tokyo. Stay on the line. Talk to me." He begged and pleaded but failed to find the words that would get through to her. _I love you. I've missed you so damn much. Don't give up on me! I'm yours forever, remember?_ He reached the airport.

**The longest public announcement** drowned out some of her next words but he caught the gist of it. _What do you mean live happily with that girl? What girl? I only have you!_ The frazzled man didn't realize the lines in his head were the very words that could have saved his wife. Instead, he entreated her to think carefully. He didn't mention the _other girl,_ wanting to save that conversation for when he saw her in person in a few short hours. Her tears filled the line between them, his silence answer enough for her.

He **reached check-in** expecting to be pushed to the front of the line but the president of some country was stuck at the front, his security detail relieving themselves one-by-one of their weapons. They took up too much time. The attendants asked him to turn off his cell phone and he reluctantly abided by their request, shutting off his wife's insanity. He **finally got through** airport security, late. **Running for a flight,** his **shoes** flew **off** but he didn't stop.

He tried dialing her from the professor's satellite phone. _**You're calling voicemail.**_ Her happy voice chirped out her message note. "Looks like you've reached my voicemail inbox! If you'd leave your name and number, I'd be happy to give you a call back!"

The other passengers in his cabin started some **in joke** he didn't understand.** Group laughter** ensued and turned his mood black, his mind blanked with worry for his wife. He sat back and counted the seconds.

He was too late.

**~ DidItellyouIlovedyoutoday? ~**

"The safety of a country lies in your hands! I understand this must be difficult for you to grasp with your wife's suicide and all but..." His mind desperately shut off at the mention of his wife. He didn't want to hear anything that followed _wife._ The pain was too much to bear. In lieu of those reeling thoughts, he focused on the **closing scenes in the meeting.** They were scolding him for abandoning the case a week ago. They would have come for him sooner had it not been for the fact that his wife had actually...

He felt the urge to call her. The number was familiar again. "Looks like you've reached my voicemail inbox! If you'd leave your name and number, I'd be happy to give you a call back!" Voicemail picked up, as always. He'd kept the line active to hear her voice. He promised himself to only leave messages until the inbox was full. He'd move on then. For now, he babbled about his day. _**Angel, Angel. Why didn't you tell me?** I could have..._ a stranger was tapping his shoulder._ **One second, someone needs directions.**_

"**Can't you see I'm on the phone?**" Why was the world against him chatting with his wife? He thought of yelling at the stranger but keeping his wife waiting didn't appeal to him anymore. He turned back into his one-sided conversation. _**Did I tell you I loved you today...?**_


End file.
